Don’t you just love the current rage for “responsibility” since it has become infused with the values of the religions right?

When Bush finally took “responsibility” for preemptively starting the war in Iraq, he accepted it as a badge of courage and leadership rather than as a stigma for which he should apologize.

And now Dennis Hastert has “accepted responsibility” for the Mark Foley mess, announcing that he is very sorry about the whole thing, but that that does not mean he should resign his office. Bush augmented his prestige by calling to say that he supported him completely.

This tragedy has added, I am sure, to the stature of both men within their party and as symbols of this great, godfearing country to the world.

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comments:

pekka
said...

Hastert is occupying that proverbial adress between a rock and a hard place. The place is shared by his ideological buddies who are obviously trying to get through with a minimum body count. For political reasons, his departure now would be even more damaging for their aspirations to hold on the seats in the Congress and thus the old lard pants will propably stay till after the elections and will not run again. This could have not happened to more deserving people!

It's very astute of you, Bill, to observe that both Bush and Hastert are posers with their "standing-tall" act. Here's hoping their inappropriately erect posturing just makes them a bigger target for outraged voters.

Kirk Fordham, the former aide to Foley, says that he warned the office of House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert of the inappropriate e-mails more than two years ago. Hastert's office has denied such a warning occurred. So who is lying here? While the Republicans are denying this and denying that, what about the pages who were exposed to the disgraced congressman's instant messages and e-mails? How have those e-mails and instant messages affected them and their well-being? The conservatives — the so-called defenders of the family — are more concerned about saving the career of Hastert than the well-being of the pages who may have been harmed by these e-mails and instant messages. The Republican Party is truly in a state of denial.

This tragedy has added, I am sure, to the stature of both men within their party and as symbols of this great, godfearing country to the world.

A Bible-Thumper super patriot I work with has given the repubs a complete pass on this scandal. His reason is that we are at war and this is small potatos compared to the big picture. I'm afraid I'm going to have to give up even listening to politics, lately it seems we have walked thru some looking glass into a bizarre altered reality.

Oslo's internationally acclaimed Natural History Museum is being assailed by Norwegian church groups over an exhibit called "Against Nature" which shows same-sex animal pairs.

The exhibit documents homosexuality among penguins, parrots, giraffes, whales and other animals and insects. A translation from Norwegian into English of a statement at the exhibit says

"We may have opinions on a lot of things, but one thing is clear — homosexuality is found throughout the animal kingdom, it is not against nature. . . . The sexual urge is strong in all animals. … It's a part of life, it's fun to have sex. . ."

But conservative Christian groups are accusing the museum of displaying pornography. One evangelical pastor said museum directors should burn in hell.

Hi Soro's Yeah, I'm up to my eyeballs with them around here. I had a nice church I attended for a while until the pastor, who was a very good true Christain, was replaced by a political Christian Ayatollah just as you mentioned. We left that church needless to say.